The Fellowship of Lifea Christian-based vegetarian group founded in 1973

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Articles

Archbishops accused of neutralising hunt debate

by Clifford Longley, RELIGIOUS
AFFAIRS EDITOR

From The Times dated Monday July 9 1990:

Attempts to ban fox hunting on the 150,000 acres of Church land in
England fizzled out at the General Synod of the Church of England in
York.

Animal rights activists still have slight hopes of influencing the
synod next year, when a statement of Christian attitudes to the care of
the environment is likely to be debated.

Andrew Linzey, Anglican chaplain at Essex university, and one of the
church's leading campaigners for animal rights, said during the weekend
debate, however, that the synod's failure to condemn hunting for sport
would cause a massive reaction against the church. He blamed "manoevres"
by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York behind the scenes for the way
the debate had been neutralised.

The motion the synod was addressing asked it to "invite the Church
Commissioners to review critically hunting for sport and intensive
farming on church-owned land" while declaring its opposition to "all
forms of cruelty and wanton killing of animals". It was proposed by the
Archdeacon of Colchester, the Ven Ernest Stroud, who also wanted the
synod to ask its board for social responsibility to undertake research
into the theological basis of human responsibility to animals.

The archdeacon said cruelty to animals was worse than ever before.
The RSPCA investigated 80,000 complaints of cruelty last year. "Add to
this the dimension of intensive farming and blood sports, and one begins
to see a problem of massive scale."

Public opinion was overwhelmingly in favour of a legal ban on
hunting, he said. "Fox hunting, stag hunting and hare coursing have the
same purpose as the now illegal pastimes of bear-baiting and
cock-fighting - that is, to provide amusement for human beings."

His motion ran the gauntlet of a battery of amendments, many of them
aimed at the reference to hunting. The synod was repeatedly warned of
the danger of alienating those who lived in the country.

A poor quality debate was brought to an early close when Canon Jesse
Sage of Canterbury diocese moved that the board should instead prepare a
statement "of Christian stewardship in relation to the whole of
creation", to stimulate, "a critical review of human responsibility to
the living environment". The Archbishop of York, Dr John Habgood, said
the original motion was "seriously flawed" and Canon Sage's amendment
was promptly accepted by Archdeacon Stroud and then carried."

For a further account of the debate and the failure of the Church to
take a lead, see Andrew Linzey, ‘Cruelty in the Church’s Own
Backyard’, Chapter 14 of Animal Gospel: Christian Faith as
If Animals Mattered (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1998), pp.
130-139.